NEW BOSS AGAIN

  

So you’re the New Boss!

Well, I do declare:

I guess I should cross

myself, and say prayers.

 

You’re just what I need:

A Seer to define

Reality for me--

It’s all in your Mind!

 

You’ve come out on top,

at least for your turn:

The cream of the crop,

with Visions to burn.

 

But what you don’t know

can hurt you: I’ve seen

each Boss come and go,

like slides on a screen.

 

But you’re the New Boss!

Without any doubt,

no time should be lost

in finding you out.

 

JODY’S GARDEN

 

Still life in back yard

Bell peppers green as their leaves

Tiny white flowers

 

Rising from compost

Thrown under the kitchen sink

Dumped from a bucket

 

Into the black bin

Where it cooked all winter long

Degrading itself

 

Humbly dissolving

Our breakfast egg shells

My home-made hair cut

 

Nail clippings tea bags

Apple cores banana peels

Sloughed off from our lives

 

Smothering the weeds

Under the shredded bark mulch

Winters newspapers

 

The outrageous puns

In the New York Times crossword

Relapse into soil

 

Red blush from the sun

Ripening on the window sill

Her first tomatoes

 

 

     SQUASH SAGA

  

The priest heard a disturbance

In the temple’s back yard,

Where the monks had planted squashes

And labored long and hard.

 

The gourds all screamed and argued,

Worked up to such a state

For and against the issues,

No monks could meditate.

 

“Hey, squashes, what’s the matter?”

The priest berated them.

“You’re not here to be fighting—

Everybody do Zazen!”

 

Immediately the creatures

Sat upright as in school,

And crossed their legs as bade them.

And soon their anger cooled,

 

While sitting just to sit

And breathing just to breathe.

“Now let’s play Simon Says,”

Spoke quietly the priest.

 

“Your hands on top your heads!”

The squashes followed suit,

And found a vine attached

To each from one same root.

 

“How strange,” they all exclaimed.

“Like cats and dogs we’ve fought,

We’ve argued and we’ve screamed,

But now we have been taught:

 

We’re sharing just one life.

What stupid squash are we!”

From thence the garden grew

Without ever sprouting weeds.

 

 

From a story told by Kosho Uchiyama in “Opening the Hand of Thought”

 

          MILLPOND GARDENS

  

Your steps descend a narrow, bushy lane

And cross the threshold of the cottage door,

To cease upon the screened porch, stand before

The still pond. You dissolve into the scene.

 

A frog croaks; turtles dive; a heron flees

The blue jay that torments him.

                                                   From the banks

That slope beyond these waters, stony ranks

Of Union dead sleep in their winding sheets

Beneath a buttercup-bespangled lawn.

 

Now glowing in the pool’s translucent glare,

Which bodies forth your mind, the morning sun

Unfolds into Thoreau’s white lily there,

Away from Walden and the tourists’ stares--

And shines within you, first fruit of the dawn. 

 

SANS CAFFEINE

  

All I do is sit

with my head in my hands,

unable to think. And I stare

out the window at myself,

as I squat on the curb

like a blind beggar, holding out

my empty cup

to the agitated

passers-by: those who have had

their fix of morning coffee.

 

I keep falling asleep

in the middle of my work,

with fitful dreams

that are not

Wish-fulfilling Gems.

 

How many days

will I languish here,

like a marionette

hung up by its strings

in the dead master’s attic?

Perhaps the wind

will blow in through

these shattered glass panes--

enough to make me dance

and swing in mid-air;

enough to dispel

these wistful

and abortive

dreams.

 

FEBRUARY 10, 1995

  

a glance of sunlight upon

the Venetian blinds,

                                 lifting

th’illimitable Universe of Things

outside of Time.

                           Was it David Hume?

I cannot remember

what he said of Causation—

my Tabula Rasa is nought

                                           but

the traffic on Rowe Boulevard,

the empty Lobby

at the Maryland State Archives—

                                                  lifted—

so to speak—beyond

causation:

                  “Unborn, Undying”

…..simplicity

of the Pink Poinsettia

setting near the Registration Desk:

a leftover from Christmas past

this almost Valentine’s Day…..

 

lifted beyond causation: Hmmm…

“And when I am raised

up, I will draw

all men unto me”…..

                              What does this mean?

a literary Socrates

pulls at the cord of the blinds,

sometimes revealing more

sometimes less

of the Measureless Light

 

the Lankavatara Sutra

                                    reveals

the Unborn Receptionist’s

Name: no Tetragrammaton,

This—but a glance

                               of sunlight

upon the Venetian blinds…..

 

     VITREOUS FLOATERS

  

Muscae volitantes they are called,

The Latin for our English “flying flies;”

A term for defects or impurities

Developed in the middle aged eye-ball,

When cells and strands of tissue flake and fall

And float around as one surveys the scene--

Especially one nearsighted, like me.

Best viewed are they against a sky or wall.

Sometimes these flying flies conglomerate

And fall upon the inner eye’s bent floor,

Where they remain until you shake the orb--

And then, as snowflakes in a paper weight

Are churned up from the landscape they disguise, 

They pirouette and swirl within your eyes!